Keyword searching is a convenient and effective method for shoppers to identify goods and services for sale on the Internet. As a result, advertisers have an interest in associating their products with search terms likely to appear in a keyword search query. Conventionally, the expected search volume for a given search term has been determined by accumulating data for multiple year time periods. This accumulated data can then be used to forecast an expected value. However, such conventional methods are time consuming and therefore impractical for general forecasting of all search terms. Additionally, many search terms of interest do not have meaningful usage data for the multiple years required for conventional forecasting.